Conference Co-sponsors & Support

The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Co-sponsor

Established as the Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies in 1978, and renamed in honor of its benefactor Robert L. McNeil, Jr., in 1998, the McNeil Center facilitates scholarly inquiry into the histories and cultures of North America in the Atlantic world before 1850, with a particular but by no means exclusive emphasis on the mid-Atlantic region. Operating as a consortium of scholarly institutions, the Center offers pre- and post-doctoral fellowships to encourage use of the Philadelphia area’s magnificent manuscript, rare book, and museum collections, conducts a seminar series to promote intellectual community among local and visiting faculty and graduate students, and organizes occasional national conferences to foster interdisciplinary research., and hosts an annual undergraduate research conference. To disseminate the best new scholarship in the field, it publishes Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and sponsors the Early American Studies monograph series published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

The Penn Center for Native American Studies, Co-Sponsor

The Penn Center for Native American Studies promotes research and education to foster cross-cultural understanding of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Towards this end, it serves as a clearing-house for Native American activities on the Penn campus. The Center also seeks to enhance the diversity of the Penn community by actively assisting in the recruitment of Native American students and increasing the number of Native American faculty and staff. The Center is committed to conducting outreach to Native American communities, particularly the Lenape (Delaware Indian) people upon whose ancestral lands the university sits.

With support from the Arthur Ross Gallery

Serving as a rich cultural resource for students, scholars and the community, the Arthur Ross Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania presents global art and artifacts through gallery exhibitions, scholarship and educational outreach. Its current exhibition, “Creating: Quilts of the Lakota,” presents over twenty eye-dazzling 20th and 21st century quilts from the Pine Ridge Heritage Center and Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In addition, 19th-century Lakota artifacts, such as moccasins, have been lent by the Penn Museum to provide a context for Native sewing traditions prior to the introduction of quilting at Pine Ridge.